Is Star Health a reliable company?

I took a direct health insurance policy from Star 4 years back.

Though I do not have Diabetes, policy document carried it to my surprise.

After calling support team, it was fixed.

This year I took Top up policy.

Again diabetes was mentioned as pre existing illness.

Now support team is not helping to correct it .

They just gave Grievance number .

No action yet even after 20 days.

When I reached them, another Grievance number was provided.

Let us look at their Claim process.

My wife was hospitalized for low sodium of 117.

Hospital sent initial claim and they disbursed 3000.

Final bill was 12000 and odd.

But they rejected the final bill and said this is the maximum amount they can pay for this illness.

Tried to reach multiple support numbers they have provided.

But NO ONE PICKED AT THE TIME OF NEED

Only hope is to reach Support team.

Replied that nothing can be done.

I was speaking in Hindi/English to support team so far.

Since Star is from my home town Chennai, I just started speaking in Tamil.

Some help came in. One guy said that it is internally mentioned that this illness does not require hospitalization and hence the claim was rejected.

Now I came to know about the actual cause of rejection which they did not provide initially.

But this was surprise as I took the advise of my neighbour who is a doctor and confirmed that 117 Sodium is not good and we can go as per hospital advise.

I was pretty confident by this reason that Star is playing trick .

Consulted my relative doctor , she advised to re-apply the claim after taking treating doctor certificate of admission .

REAPPLY? - I do not know this facility exists

Went again to the hospital and doctor helped to provide the certificate.

Went to Star Health branch and provided all the treatment copies along with certificate.

They told it will take 30 days.

After 30 days no action from Star.

Reached via Twitter.

They asked me the claim number and settled the amount same day.

From this I started to believe it is very difficult to get money from private insurance.

Because my experience with Corporate public sector insurance was hassle free for 2 times.

DO NOT BELIVE THAT YOU HAVE INSURANCE AND YOUR CLAIM WILL BE PROCESSED.

I have planned for porting from Star during next renewal for sure.

My question to all of the experts - How reliable is Star?

What are your customers saying from their experience?

How reliable is private insurance in general?

By going with Incurred Claim Ratio, public sector companies have very good numbers.

Is it advisable to go with Public sector companies? though their features are not that great and premium is high. But the chances of getting your money back is way much higher I feel.

Thanks.

.